🔗 Share this article

'We don’t want pity, we want action'.

A young student, 12, Khan Younis

For the past two years since I stepped into a learning environment. That long since I heard the school chime at Khawla Bint al-Azwar school, occupied my place and answered questions during my beloved lesson. At times I still clearly recall the familiar scents and noises: writing residue, pencil shavings, cheerful echoes. But my learning place was destroyed; it was struck shortly after the conflict started. My learning materials incinerated, and some of my friends killed.

I was in elementary level on that fateful day: the last day I attended classes. That morning, warning alarms screamed through the halls. Some pupils sobbed, others clasped palms firmly. Our educator attempted reassurance, but even her voice trembled. I remember longing for a normal day; lessons, recess, a verse presentation. Instead, that day marked the end of my old life.

The war has taken so much. But the hardest loss of all is learning, because that is the loss of the future itself.

Now I live with my mother and father, siblings and sister in a crowded shelter in Khan Younis. The shelter coverings move with air currents, keeping neither cold nor heat away. We queue for sustenance and drinks. Energy access is fantasy and personal space is absent. Optimism seems delicate.

At evening, I observe the night lights through the holes of my tent and question if my companions see the same sky. Some message me when they manage, stating they yearn for classes and have preserved their old notebooks; like treasures from a lost world. I feel ashamed because I’ve forfeited all of mine.

I once dreamed of pursuing pedagogy to assist local youth learn, even when life was hard. Now I hope for being a reporter – to compose, to talk and to reveal the world what it represents to be a child in this region. I want to tell our stories of apprehension and need, but also fortitude. Because even in this place, amid death and ruins, our words continue.

When connectivity is available, I try to study digitally. Sometimes, I go to a tiny space where aid workers instruct us mathematics and language. The lessons are short – the power fails or the airstrikes begin again but in these instances, I sense being. I recollect who I was: the young woman who adored mathematics and poetry, who thought education could transform society.

Hostilities have stolen countless aspects; our homes, schools and kin. I mourned my paternal relative, his wife, and their young ones. I lost my beautiful city, my previous home, which is only ruins now. But the hardest loss of all is schooling, because it represents the forfeiture of tomorrow.

To the world, I say this: don’t let our dreams die. We don’t want pity, we demand measures. Gaza’s children merit literature, educational facilities and security. Education is not an extravagance, it is a essential privilege. Gaza is not merely devastation; it is minors who persist in hoping beneath the drones at night. It is my narrative and I will continue writing, even if my only possessions is a damaged writing tool and a scrap of damaged material.

'Students ask: "Teacher, are you safe?"'.

Naglaa Weshah, 40, instructor in al-Bureij camp

I have been teaching in Gaza for more than a decade. Originally in a southern city, then in Deir al-Balah, and now in al-Bureij camp in the heart of the region. Prior to hostilities, I regularly instructed several sets of about fourty pupils per class, nearly 240 young minds eager to learn.

Teaching them was my vocation and delight in reality, and I still remember the sparkle in a student’s eyes when a knowledge was acquired; the type of instance every teacher strives for.

I always believed instruction should be full of life. My learning environment was a space of play, aesthetics, and motion. We created cartographic art, dramatized bygone episodes, and converted teaching into tales.

Joy always filled the room as curiosity displaced apprehension. Indeed, even prior to conflict, children in Gaza were always frightened. My classroom was a place of safety but after the seventh, the situation transformed.

My educational institution became a safe haven for households running from the explosives. Shortly after, it was targeted and totally demolished. There are almost no schools left standing in this area now. For this period, all has been unusual. The conflict has shattered every aspect of our existence: security, residences, learning places, dreams. Fear and grief are ever-present realities.

Many of my learners are now deceased – youth who mentioned aspiring to be doctors, painters, and instructors. They were deprived even the privilege of living. Those who remain endure hunger, displacement and fatigue – and however, they still hold onto the desire for education.

Sometimes, when the online access permits, I get in touch with a handful of them. They contact asking: “Are you OK, teacher?” We share short messages, short lessons, small glimmers of contact amid the chaos. They ask if circumstances will ever revert to standard. I tell them I am uncertain.

Across Gaza, instructors, volunteers and charities attempt instruction in all available spaces: in tents, destroyed learning spaces, or crowded shelters. Education has become an gesture of resistance, a way to say: “We persist.” And as long as we keep acquiring knowledge, we will persist.

Numerous of us are also parents. I am a mother of {three|several